It’s one closest to the camera, like I said, because I used too much butter in the sauce, light cream and waited until it cooled to take the picture, the sauce split, otherwise it would’ve been perfect!

So this is the second part of the trio, and undoubtedly the heaviest component of the three. The rich stuffing made ensures that the chicken’s going to be nice and moist, while the foie gras sauce adds a layer of deep deep richness that will knock your calorie intake meter off the charts. This certainly isn’t everyday food, but a great indulgence every now and then. I’ve had a veal chop with a foie cras sauce a few years ago at Bice in Dubai and have been dreaming of copying it at home every since. I used this recipe as a base, but you’ll see that I tweaked it here and there to tie it in to the rest of the dish a bit better. As for the roulade stuffing, in our traditional Egyptian/Arabic cuisine there’s a famous chicken with walnut sauce dish called “sharkaseyya” which translates to Circassian, presumably where we imported the dish from. I used this recipe as the base for the stuffing.

Makes 12-15 Roulade discs

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius

For the chicken

You will need 3 boned large chicken breasts, prepare them (butterfly them and pound them into thin fillets) as shown here.

For the stuffing:

1tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 large yellow onions, diced small

1 celery stalk, diced

5 finely diced large button mushrooms

2tsp dried sage

1/2 cup dry white wine

3/4 cup toasted walnuts, finely chopped in a food processor

Some chicken stock (about 1/4 cup) to keep the mixture moist

Basically you need to heat the oil (medium high heat) in a small saucepan, add the butter and wait till the foam subsides, then add the diced onions, celery and sage, and saute until the onions and celery are softened (2-3mins). Then add the wine, mushrooms and walnuts, keep cooking on a reduced heat until the mixture forms a nice homogeneous paste (15-20min). If you feel you’ve over-reduced the paste and it’s too dry, just add a bit of stock to moisten it. Salt and pepper to taste. Spread the paste over the prepared breasts and roll the breasts into a nice roulade and hold their form using either cooking string or chopsticks.

Heat some oil or butter in a large pan (make sure it doen’t have a plastic handle as it will go into the oven), and brown the formed roulades on all sides (about 5mins) over a medium high heat, and then stick the pan into the oven for 12ish minutes to finish the chicken off. Remove the chicken once cooked and cut into 1.5-2cm thick discs.

For the Sauce:

50g foie gras

50g butter

½ shallot, finely chopped

50ml chicken stock

3 tbsp Heavy cream

2 bottle caps of cognac or brandy

12 trumpet mushrooms

The sauce is actually pretty easy, just process the foie gras and half the butter in a food processor or hand mixer until they for a uniform paste. Heat the remaining butter on a medium high heat, once the foam subsides add the onion/shallots. Cook until softened, then add the foie gras and butter paste along with the cognac. Stir about on a reduced heat for about 5-7min, finish off with the cream and mushrooms, raise the heat to just about a boil for 2-3mins, then let simmer again for 5mins.

Plate your roulades and spoon the sauce over them. This is pretty fantastic. Hope you enjoy!